The invention relates generally to photography and in particular to compact or small size cameras.
General
Film and cameras that are all in one, commonly referred to as single-use or one-time-use cameras, have become well known for their low cost and their compactness.
The one-time-use camera is a simple point-and-shoot camera comprising a conventional film cartridge within a cartridge receiving chamber in a main body part, an unexposed film roll prewound from the film cartridge onto a film supply spool within a film supply chamber in the main body part, a film-exposing chamber between the cartridge receiving and film supply chambers in the main body part, a fixed-focus taking lens, a manually rotatable film winding thumbwheel coaxially engaged with a film winding spool inside the film cartridge, a single-blade shutter, a manually depressible shutter release button, a frame counter wheel that has a scale of decreasing frame count numbers and is incrementally rotated to successively view each frame count number, an anti-backup pawl that engages the frame counter wheel to prevent its reverse rotation, a direct see-through viewfinder having front and rear viewfinder lenses, and in some models an electronic flash. A pair of separate front and rear cover parts house the main body part between them to complete the camera. The rear cover part connects to the main body part and/or to the front cover part to make the main body part light-tight. Front and rear cover labels (or a decorative cardboard outer box) at least partially cover the front and rear cover parts and have separate openings for the taking lens, the front and rear viewfinder lenses, etc.
To take a picture, the shutter release button is manually depressed. This causes a spring-urged high-energy lever to be released to strike the shutter blade, which then pivots open to uncover an exposure aperture. A return spring connected to the shutter blade pivots the shutter blade closed to re-cover the exposure aperture. Also, a metering lever is pivoted out of spring-biased engagement with the thumbwheel in order to permit manual rotation of the thumbwheel in the film winding direction after the picture is taken. When the thumbwheel is rotated in a film winding direction, it similarly rotates the film winding spool inside the film cartridge to wind an exposed frame of the filmstrip from across the exposure chamber to inside the film cartridge and to advance an unexposed frame of the filmstrip from the unexposed film roll to across the exposure chamber. The rewinding movement of the filmstrip the equivalent of slightly more than one frame width rotates a metering sprocket in engagement with successive perforations in the filmstrip, to in turn incrementally rotate the frame counter wheel to view its next lower frame count number. Also, the high energy lever is re-cocked or re-set and the metering lever is pivoted into re-engagement with the thumbwheel. When the metering lever re-engages the thumbwheel, further manual rotation of the thumbwheel in the film winding direction is prevented and the camera is ready to take another picture.
When the maximum number of frames available on the filmstrip have been exposed and the filmstrip is completely wound into the film cartridge, the one-time-use camera is given to a photofinisher who breaks away a cover door portion of the rear cover part from the main body part and removes the film cartridge with the exposed filmstrip from the cartridge receiving chamber. Then, he removes the exposed filmstrip from the film cartridge to develop the latent images and make prints for the customer.
Prior Art Problem
Most one time-use camera strive to be the model of compactness.
One example of a compact camera is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,562 issued Jul. 22, 1986. A camera body has upper and lower chambers for a film take-up spool and a film cartridge, and an exposure aperture between the chambers. The filmstrip is advanced vertically behind the exposure aperture from one of the chambers to the other chamber. This by itself is a compact arrangement. However, the compactness of the camera suffers by the location of an electronic flash unit. The electronic flash unit including its flash emission lens and capacitor are remotely spaced from the upper and lower chambers.
A compact camera comprises.
a main body part having a front and a rear, including upper and lower longitudinally-horizontal partially-cylindrical portions defining rearwardly-open film chambers for a film supply spool and a film cartridge, and another portion between the upper and lower portions defining a rearwardly-open film exposing chamber between the film chambers, to allow a filmstrip to be advanced vertically across the film exposing chamber from one of the film chambers to the other film chamber;
a flash circuit board on the front of the main body part, including a flash emission lens at the upper portion; and
front and rear cover parts housing the main body part and flash circuit board.
Preferably, the front and rear cover parts are dimensioned so that the camera has a height H and a width W that are substantially the same, and a depth D from front to rear that is less than the height or width. Thus the front and rear cover parts are substantially square-faced.